Vacation Mini Album

I've started making mini albums for our vacation photos because I can complete them so much quicker than a regular album. I finally finished the mini book for our trip to Savannah and Charleston. Here are a few photos of some of the pages.

For the cover, I used a combination of vintage and new patterned papers. I cut the gate from a piece of Prima paper I've been saving. It echoes the ornate iron work that we saw throughout Charleston. I tied antique lace trims to the binder rings.

Inside, I kept the pages soft and romantic. I used a color scheme of pinks, greens, and beige. I went through my paper stash and pulled out all my favorites from Prima, Webster's Pages, Basic Grey, Creative Imaginations, and K&Co.

I tucked journaling in here and there and used vintage pieces throughout.

I typed all of the journaling on my old typewriter. Here I am at lunch at Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons in Savannah.

We also visited a few old plantations outside of Savannah.

We took a bike ride through historic Charleston, which allowed us to get up close to the beautiful homes and architecture.

The cities and towns in Georgia and South Carolina have beautiful cemeteries. Lush foliage and flowers, old stones, and ornate statues.

Because the pages of my book are 8"x8", I had minimal space for multiple photos on a page. I made flip-up and pull-out pages where needed. Here's an example of one.

Upon opening the photo, I have another photo and the journaling.

On this page, I used paper that reflected the iron work of the gate in the photo.

Lifting the photo reveals a secret garden, which is exactly what the real garden felt like.

I love old architecture, especially churches. I put together a compilation of the photos of historic Charleston churches that we visited.

Opening the page:

And opening again:

I also kept the embellishments on each page to a minimum since I was relying on the paper's patterns to blend with the photos and feel of the locations.

I made this background by combining several scraps of vintage papers. It had the "assembled" look that I wanted. I secured the photo using masking tape, to further reflect the assembled feel.

I made the last page using a piece of printed canvas, which I cut to size, allowing for the bottom to fold over to create a pocket. I placed postcards, brochures, tickets, and other mementos from our trip in this pocket.

We had a wonderful time on this vacation and now we can finally reminisce about our trip while we look at the photos.

 

Big Mini Book

I have been terrible at keeping up with my scrapbooking. I still have vacation photos from 2006 that aren't scrapped. I wanted to get busy creating, but was a little tired of doing 12x12 albums. So, I decided to make my own album that is the perfect size for scrapping these vacation photos from our 2006 trip to Florida.

The album measures slightly larger than 8x10 inches. I made the front and back covers with chipboard that I covered in paper and fabric. Here is the front, covered in a piece of barkcloth. The embellishments are resting on a burlap base. I tied a little grungy tag and some stained cheesecloth to the top binder ring.

Here's a peek at some of the pages inside. I went for a minimalist design to make the layouts quick and easy. I used a "sea and sand" color scheme for all the pages and used just a few embellishments on each page.

I also didn't do a lot of journaling - basically date, where we were, what we did. For pages that included more journaling, I hid the journaling. Like this page highlighting our day at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach. (It's actually a two-page layout.) Each of the four photos (two are shown) lifts to reveal two more photos. Tucked under each photo "book" is a tag that I wrote the journaling on. This way, I've preserved the memories and information, but it doesn't clutter my page.

I used pop-dots to raise the photo of us at the Southernmost Point landmark.



One of my favorite memories from this trip is visiting the Key West Butterfly Conservatory. I took a ton of photos and it was hard to choose just a few. I had one enlarged, so that little beauty got her own page.

I selected more of my favorites and made a flip-out book. Because these extra photos would be too heavy to adhere to a piece of cardstock, I created a page, slightly smaller than the others, from cardboard. The cardboard is sturdy enough to handle the weight of the flip-out book. I covered it with patterned paper and a few neutral embellishments.



On the left below is the back of the cardboard page. It's the perfect background for this photo of Husband, taken as we were driving out of Key West. On the right is one of my favorite photos of us, taken at a fabulous Cuban restaurant in Palm Beach - The Columbian.

I want to show you what I did with all that memorabilia that we collect on vacation. I didn't want it to clutter up my pages, especially since it didn't match with my color scheme. On the inside of the back cover, I created a pocket out of burlap and tucked all these momentos inside - menus, ticket stubs, maps, you name it. To make sure the papers didn't fall out or slide around, I criss-crossed and tied a piece of twine to keep them in place.



I was able to scrap my entire trip within a week. I was thrilled to get it done. I was very selective in the photos that went into the album, which helped keep it manageable. Now I can move on to our Savannah trip...